So it's true-- I rarely quote Pope Benedict XVI/ Il Papa/ P-Benny. It's not for lack of reading or hearing what he has to say-- I scoured a shop behind the Vatican in Rome for an English copy of Deus Caritas Est when it hit the religious bookstores, only to realize I had been walking past it for a good 15 minutes. I suppose I just never read anything of his that made me look up and say, "Wow. Now, THAT hit me!" in a way that made me want to jump up and down and instantly email, text, and Tweet it to everyone on my contacts list... until now.
I follow the blog for one of the religious congregations that sponsored me at Saint Mary's College. I met with three in their cloistered community last month, a few days before I left NY, because I wanted to meet in person some of the beautiful souls who opened themselves to sponsor a complete stranger in higher education. So, I hopped on a train from Penn Station and headed out to visit the Dominican Sisters of Summit, NJ. (I believe I Tweeted this experience.) I brought pictures of the Cabrini Sisters, CMC, and ministry at the high school. We had a wonderful time sharing in the presence of each other for a couple of hours. During this time, we shared our blog information and I've been following them ever since.
Tonight, after returning home from a 12-hour drive from Washburn, WI to St. Louis, MO, I logged on and started catching up on emails. I made a pass at all of the blog updates I'd missed and saw that the Dominican Sisters had this golden nugget of vocational goodness on their blog. After reading it, I and simply HAD to share it! (The Spirit made me do it!!!) I am retaining their emphasis from the quotation of the pope. This he shared with young people at the Cathedral of Sulmona, Italy (which is a town that I visited back in my sophomore year of college while traveling with my dear friend, Laura Lucci, on a pilgrimage to her father's town of Pacentro!).
"You have just asked me: how does one recognize God's call? Well, the secret of the vocation lies in the capacity for and joy of distinguishing, listening to, and obeying his voice. But to do this it is necessary to accustom our hearts to recognizing the Lord and to having an awareness of him as a Person who is close to me and loves me. As I said this morning, it is important to learn to live in our days moments of inner silence in order to hear the Lord's voice. You may be sure that if we learn to listen to this voice and to follow it generously, we have nothing to fear, we know and feel that God is with us, that God is Friend, Father and Brother. In a word: the secret of the vocation lies in the relationship with God, in prayer that develops, precisely, in inner silence, in the capacity for listening, hearing that God is close. And this is true both before the decision, that is, at the time of deciding and setting out, and afterward, if one wants to be faithful and to persevere on the way."
My experience as a writing tutor reminds me what bad manners it is to have a dropped quote-- a quotation from another source that is simply left dangling within your essay/paper/written work without any additional commentary on the subject of that quote. It is simply seen as improper because the whole point of writing is to expand on ideas and share your reactions to ones previously stated. In a worst-case scenario, a dropped quotation can be seen as an act of laziness. However, in this case, I believe that the inscription above can hold its own. I leave it up to the reader to ingest the words at his/her pace without my commentary. Think about it. Pray about it.Let it marinade and ferment in your heart and mind. I know I'll be thinking about it for quite a while.
Thanks, Holy Spirit. :)
Speaking of vocation, this is an excellent book on the subject. It was recommended to CMC by our good friends Gina and Luke. It reads as a scholarly study of how our deepest desires and vocation can be stirred by our surroundings, histories, and needs in the world today. It took me a while to finish (Read one chapter, process for a week. Read another chapter, reflect for two weeks. Lost the book. Found the book. Etc...), but in the end, I was glad I did. :)
Peace,
-Michelle
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